The Trial Never Ends
by writerofprose
Summary: It's been a year since Picard faced Q's trial against humanity in "All Good Things..." and Q is back on the Enterprise again, as troublesome and perplexing as ever. This time he needs help.


Captain's Log, Stardate 48319.2

_We have come in orbit around Cyano IV to aid in negotiations between two feuding factions indigenous to the planet. Cyano IV is unique to the quadrant, perhaps to the entire galaxy. Its atmosphere is compromised of an unstable mixture of hydrogen, oxygen and methane: a Class K planet not known to support humanoid life though humanoids have evolved to live there. An ecological upheaval relatively recently in the Cynoans' history gave them little choice. Now it seems it is not only the methane atmosphere which threatens the Cynoans but the Cynoans themselves._

* * *

Picard buttoned off the terminal in barely contained disgust. Eight days ago he had written that log. Eight days and no progress towards peace had been made. With the might of the Federation at his back, Picard was more accustomed to settling matters in one or two afternoons. The most challenging diplomatic mission he could recall had been five days, and even that had been highly unusual.

So much of this mission was unusual. The atmosphere, the curious life-forms that had evolved from it. Even Cyano IV's independence was an anomaly this deep into Federation space. The Cynoans more than most knew the might of the Federation, and yet unimpressed they remained. Perhaps their history had something to do with their hostility to change; change had not treated them well before and half-measures had killed their ancestors. Only the strongest had survived.

Picard was not feeling so strong. One motivation towards peace he kept in the back of his mind (in addition to saving a civilization, of course, the unequivocal goal): if the Cynoans could open its arms to the Federation, ecologists could quadruple the current research on methane-informed life. Who knew what boon could come of that?

The prospect of knowledge merited any hardship. Picard buttoned on his terminal and typed that in before ending the day: _Knowledge merits hardship_. It would encourage him in the morning.

Negotiations had ended for the day as had Picard's routine check-in with the bridge. The weekly poker game was scheduled in Riker's quarters and Picard had more than once thought about skipping. He was exhausted.

The art of relaxing. He did not feel any better at it, but at least he was becoming more aware. In the end, he decided Deanna would probably chide him for not taking "a much-needed break," and so he went.

The synthehol was already flowing when Picard took his chair and began shuffling the cards. Riker gave him a knowing look as he slid Picard a glass of wine. The others had yet to join the table.

"How are our dogged Cynoans doing today?"

"Dogged," Picard answered. "A more stubborn species I have never seen. They insist on warring when every shot fired has a greater and greater chance of igniting most of their atmosphere. I believe they find some satisfaction in the threat of mutual destruction."

"I can believe it. Our ancestors were like that once."

"Yes, but one might learn from the mistakes of others."

"The Vulcan high council has messaged us about the rendezvous next week. They're wondering if we anticipate any delays."

"If you don't mind, Number One, could we discuss this at our meeting tomorrow morning?"

"Not at all."

Picard set the deck down, rubbed his forehead. "I'm sorry, Will. I'm just a little tired at the moment."

"Of course. Don't apologize. We all know better than to discuss work. Data, could you remove the seventh chair? A certain commanding officer has Geordi running diagnostics on the Captain's life support suit, and I don't think he'll be making it."

"You couldn't delegate it?" Picard asked.

"With all due respect, sir, it's your life support suit."

Data moved the chair. All eyes on him, he took the opportunity to share an amusing vignette of when he had dined with Geordi earlier that day. Something about an "attractive young ensign" and Geordi's refusal to advance due to ethical reasons, which Data did not understand. Picard wasn't really listening. He was shuffling the cards again, lost in thoughts he was not aware of having, adrift in some clean, empty space where there were no threats of annihilation and no uncomfortable life support suits and no pressure to save anyone's life or meet anyone's rendezvous or even to relax, if he did not want to.

And then Q.

The thought of Q was startling, not pleasant at all, and Picard began to ask himself why he'd had it in the first place. Unless—

He glanced up and Q was there, in the room, standing across from Picard between Data and Beverly. He had spoken. Picard's subconscious had been paying more attention that his conscious, because he had no trouble replaying what he'd missed: "Ah, human bonding rituals. What fun you seem to be having! How pleasant it must be! Jean-Luc, why haven't you invited me before this?"

He was wearing the infernal captain's uniform and looking at Picard expectantly. When Picard did not immediately answer, Q spoke on. "I've glanced at the rules. I see the appeal in the betting, and this particular variation in that you bet multiple times throughout the game instead of just the one, but the name defies logic. Texas Holdem. Texas? Hold them? Hold what?"

"Presumably the cards." Riker's voice was cold and flat.

"And what's this business about Texas?"

"Presumably Texas was the origin of the game."

"Then I object to the name on the grounds of its banality. Your Greeks once spent fifteen years thinking up a name for a configuration of stars. You couldn't give this fifteen minutes? Rummikub, now there's a name. Some called it Rummy-Q."

Picard could take no more. "Since when do you care about the titles of poker variations?"

"I don't. But I had to say something to get your attention. You were drifting off. Feeling tired, _mon capitaine_? It's been so long since we've talked. I wonder if there's a… connection."

It was unsettling the way Q could demand one's attention. His mere appearance was as shocking as if he'd strolled into the room and thrown over the table. And yet perhaps Picard should be thanking him for appearing because what he'd wanted to happen had in a sense now happened: the Cynoan conflict had stopped mattering. That, along with the troubles of the Enterprise, flew to the back of Picard's mind and stayed there. He felt focused again for the first time in days.

"No connection. Just tired. Your concern is appreciate but not required."

"Of course it's not required."

Picard straightened his spine, making himself taller. "It has been a long time. Not long enough. Perhaps you should visit at a later hour. We're playing a game."

"And so shocking! Here I thought you all hated games."

"Your games," said Worf.

"That's fair, I do think them up on the spot."

"Don't you have somewhere better to be, Q?" Riker said.

"Don't you think I'd be there if I did?"

"You flatter us."

"Ah, Madame Crusher. It's not a matter of you being interesting, it's a matter of my presence making you so."

"Now he flatters himself," Riker said.

"But a game! I love games. And I have a reputation for liking humans, so, combining the two…"

"We do not like you," Worf said.

"Says the half-human. I could change that, Klingon. Believe you me, it would increase your appeal by about ten thousand percent."

"Would you like to play our game, Q?" Deanna asked.

Her voice was a slap to the face though it was softer and quieter than anything else in the room: it hushed everyone, drew all attentions to hers. There was brilliance in what she had done, giving Q something to do before Q gave all of _them_ something to do. If he was truly interested in the game, he could not disagree.

"I would, thank you," Q said. "I was waiting for you to ask. I don't force myself on people, you know." In a flash of light a chair appeared for him and they all found themselves shifted away to make room.

Picard sipped his wine. He noticed others sipping their drinks as well. The last time he had seen Q, at that absurd trial, he had wondered if it would be the end. Q had created a sense of closure to their interactions then, for although he had told him the trial never ends it was clear Picard had passed some quintessential test. A part of him had hoped there would be more.

Though now that Q was here, in the flesh, he renounced that part of him fully.

Sitting down, leaning back, Q studied his cards.

The flop was different from the one Picard had dealt. Picard's own hand, too, had changed. "I took the liberty of shuffling," Q explained.

"If I may have a word," Data said, setting his cards flat. "I do not see much point in continuing the game without some agreement from Q that he will not employ all of his faculties to win."

"All my faculties, what does that mean?" Q muttered.

Picard answered when no one else did. "Q, you know very well what it means."

"Tush-tush. Fine." To Data, "You have my word as a gentleman. No faculties but these." He gestured vaguely to his eyes.

Data asked for the bets. Picard was so hyper-aware of Q he was not even thinking when he threw in a chip. Data turned the fourth over. Picard bet again. Everyone except Deanna bet too, quickly, in the same agitated state as Picard. Beverly looked flushed. Riker was staring holes into the side of Q's face. Picard considered leaving the room as he had little doubt Q would follow him. Save them all the headache. Perhaps save them from worse.

Q's expression fluctuated between doubtful and resolved, but he eventually matched their bets. Data turned the fifth, and no one placed bets except Picard and Riker and Q. The round completed, they turned their cards over. Picard's, a hand of nothing. Riker, two Queens.

"Let's see it," Riker said to Q.

Q turned over a three and a seven and flopped back in his chair. "Does that mean I lost? In all honesty, I don't know how to play this game."

"Then you should not play."

"Mr. Worf," Picard said.

"Oh, let him speak his mind. Let everyone speak their mind. Heaven knows I hear far, far worse than you squeaky mortals on regular occasion."

Riker looked at Picard with eyebrows raised: _What the hell is going on here?_

"Do we play again?" Q asked. "Go on. Shuffle." He snapped twice towards Data. Fortunately, no act of power accompanied the gesture.

Data shuffled and dealt (though it was not his turn), and they played again, and the rounds went very similar to the previous ones so that Picard seriously doubted anyone was trying to win. Once again it was Riker and he—and this time Worf—who challenged Q at the end. And Q, once again, turned over a hand of nothing.

"Beverly," Picard said, "perhaps you should pour Q a drink since he's so determined to make his fortune tonight. It might be a while yet." She looked like she could use the break. "And Data, would you select some music perhaps? We wouldn't want our _very_ omnipotent friend to be under-stimulated. Q, I must say, your presence has added so much to these last two hands. Are we to expect you here regularly?"

Q rolled his eyes.

He behaved as if he did not wish to be noticed, and yet, what did he expect? There were countless other places he could have gone to _not_ be noticed.

"Is there something wrong, Q?" Riker asked.

"Not at all. Why do you ask?"

"You seem… different," Deanna said.

"Sensing that, are you?"

Data weighed in from across the room. "Out of the seven times you have appeared on this ship, to my current knowledge, you have made your agenda known within six point five minutes of appearance, on average. Calculating for any disparity in the ship's logs, for I was not personally present for every one of your appearances, you are overdue for an explanation. In conclusion, you are 'bucking the trend.'"

"Data, I'm touched you were counting."

"Drink up, Q." Beverly placed a tumbler in front of him then left to stand at the window, arms crossed, angry at the stars.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Doctor's bedside manner. This isn't poisoned, is it? Because it won't work, I've tried."

"Q, should we take the game to another room?" Picard asked. "I'd hate to think we are disturbing you."

"A little, Jean-Luc, but I wanted to play so… no more than expected."

"Maybe you should sit this one out," Riker said. "Learn the rules."

"But I learn rules best by playing."

"This isn't just about you," Picard said.

"That's where you're wrong, everything's about me."

"Not this. Q, if you wish to talk to me, I am more than willing. Do not involve them."

"Who said anything about talking to you? Look at that ego, do you find them so dull? I find them interesting enough, these friends of yours. How you got them, why they've stayed with you so long…"

"Q."

Q downed the synthahol in one swallow. He made a disgusted face, and a purple liquid appeared in his glass, which he sipped. "Maybe we should raise the stakes. Would that interest you more, Picard? What fun is it bartering with meaningless chips?"

"Of course, here it comes," Picard muttered loudly enough for Riker to hear.

"And play with what?" Riker asked Q. "Our lives?"

"Now there's an idea."

"Enough with this gibberish," Picard said.

"Data, would you kindly deal? Since no one _believes_ I want to play unless we're actually playing."

"No one here believes you want to play," Picard said. "To play poker anyway, for indeed you are playing at something."

Q slung his chips across the table. "Enough! All of you, out." He looked at Picard. "Not you, O captain my captain. You stay."

Riker leaned on the table, claiming stake to it. "I guess you haven't noticed, but these are my quarters?"

"OUT."

Q raised his hand and they all vanished. All except Picard, who slowly and confidently stood. He was glad to be on familiar ground at last, glad Q was not insulting him with the charade. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Oh they're fine," Q said, "Just fine, before you go begging. Sit down. Stop looking like I've hurled them overboard. We're going to talk. You asked to talk."

"I asked," Picard said as he took his seat again. He didn't think Q missed the sarcasm.

"So. It's been a while, hasn't it? Over a year. The great Jean-Luc Picard and the great Q, together again."

"You've changed, Q."

"In what way?"

"You've reverted."

"Meaning? Communicate for me, this is the point."

"You want to learn poker? Is this the same Q that had me travelling forwards and backwards through time, who taunted me with the nature of reality?—the secrets of existence?"

"I have my moods." Q tipped his chair back and, balancing perfectly, sipped the purple liquid. Picard waited for further explanation, for any explanation at all. He hoped whatever mess Q was about to cause would be quick, would not further prolong the delicate negotiations on Cyano IV. He had a bad feeling. Q's timing was usually… timed.

"Do you meet here every week?" Q asked.

"We do, yes."

"And you play as equals? No rank?"

"It wouldn't be a game otherwise."

"If you had a tiff with Riker over, I don't know, warp coils or how many crewmembers have shared his bed, would you bring that into the game? Do you try to compartmentalize, or is it all cards on the table, as they say?"

"Still interested in poker?"

"Answer the question."

"Out there is the job. This is different."

"But Captain Picard has a very difficult time disassociating his job from the rest of his life. That's something I would know about."

"The goal of my job is peace, always. That applies to interpersonal matters."

"I see."

Picard narrowed his eyes. "Six point five minutes. Is the point coming?"

Q smiled. "Data's handy to have around, isn't he? Far more intelligent than any of you, but instead of using it for his own ends, as anyone would, he's loyal… selfless to the point of self-destruction. That is also something I would know about." The expression on Q's face; Picard wanted to call it a wince. He warred against the strangeness of it.

"I don't believe I've ever seen you like this, Q."

"Haven't you? I thought I'd reverted."

"I'm talking about you referencing your time spent as a human. I thought you'd willfully forgotten it. There've been no grand gestures, so far. Not too much arrogance. You seem worse than bored, upset. It's enough to concern me that something negative has happened elsewhere."

"Nothing's happened. Nothing you'd notice."

"Then something has happened?"

Q let his chair fall back on all four legs. He gathered the cards and began to shuffle them, perfectly, a flawless fan. He cut the deck in two and slid half to Picard. "Let's play a simpler game, shall we?"

"What game?"

"War."

Picard knew this game. He'd played it as a child. "I'm done with games, Q. I have negotiations to attend early in the morning and frankly I've needed more rest than I've been getting."

"I insist. If you win, I'll give you something nice. A planet, a stable wormhole, a better job..."

"And if I lose?"

Q flipped his first card over. A jack. Picard flipped his. The five of hearts. Q took the hand. "I see little reason to humor you," Picard said, "when you expect me to believe you've come here for _War_. With me."

"I have come for you. War was an afterthought. Your card."

Picard flipped, and again Q took the hand.

"Have you rigged the deck?"

"Why is everyone accusing me of cheating today?"

Another hand. Q won.

"It's an honest question," Picard said.

"You wouldn't know the difference if I had."

"I'd know _you_ weren't _cheating_. I do have better things to do."

"Yet you came to play a game. I know! If you win, I'll answer a question that's been mucking about in your brain for far longer than you've wanted it to. There's a prize."

"What question is that?"

Q held up a finger for silence.

Picard turned his attention back to the game, not that it required any attention besides basic value recognition. They played silently, Q taking most of the cards but Picard taking some. It was a matter of time now, until Q won. Picard was determined not to be rattled and persisted until the end, even as his cards dwindled to the single digits. Even as Q took his last one.

"You play games as you do anything else, straining to enjoy yourself as little as possible. Another round?" Two stacks of cards appeared between them.

"No. I'm done for the night. If that forfeits the prize, so be it."

"Honestly, Jean-Luc, sometimes you show no ambition at all. Very well, I'll give you your prize anyway." Q leaned over the table, leaned until his face was ghostly in the lamplight. "Did I save your life? Yes. It was me. Not a hallucination or a dream." He leaned out. "As if your dwindling brain could have invented that."

Picard's eyes fell to the cards. He slid a finger along the deck's edge, uncomfortable in the glow of the truth. This was why he had put off asking. Deep down he knew, but it was easier not knowing, not imagining the mystery would ever have an answer. "Why didn't you tell me then?"

"That wasn't the point. Then."

Picard nodded. "I owe you a… a sincere thank you."

Q merely smiled.

It felt ungrateful to leave him now. Perhaps tying Picard in place was Q's intention but Picard could allow it, this time. "You came here to tell me that?"

"I never understand your preoccupation with _why_ I come here. My latest theory is it's entirely narcissistic. Bragging rights, or some such."

"Damage control."

Q laughed. "Fear, you mean. You shouldn't fear me. Not after saving your life. Not after whisking your entire race out from the lunette of the Continuum's guillotine."

Picard could only nod again.

"You're very important to me, you know."

Now he looked away, looked at anything but Q. There was a nagging dullness in his chest. He could not stop hearing the phrase: _master and pet_. _Master and pet_. For ever since Data had described their relationship in those terms, Picard had discovered an uncomfortable level of truth in it. He could glean from Q's silence and his unflinching posture he wanted a response, but he couldn't reciprocate. He couldn't lie either. He told himself it didn't matter, that in all likelihood Q was being insincere. There was still a reason behind this visit. He hadn't heard it yet.

Eventually Q folded his hands on the table, cocked his head at a new angle. "Do you understand what that means? Someone like me thinking of someone like you as important?"

"Someone like me?"

"Mortal. Third-dimensional."

"That certainly does describe me."

"It means I won't let you die unnecessarily. It means I can give you things you've never dreamed."

"Whereas if you were just a human you would bring far less to the table. In fact, I should value you above my mortal, third-dimensional friends. Is that what you're saying with all of this?"

"Your 'friends' have their value. Humans have their value."

"I wouldn't guess it by the way you shooed them out of here."

"Don't pretend this is the first I've said of this. I've always admired the human capacity for growth. Lately, for belonging."

"Are you asking to be a member of my crew again?"

Q pursed his lips, looking suddenly tired. "You're in a foul mood. Maybe you had better go."

"Yes. I've an early start in the morning."

Picard didn't say goodbye to Q when he left the room. It didn't seem unusual for in fact he couldn't recall a time he had ever bid Q goodbye, and perhaps the only reason he noticed it this time was _he_ left Q, not the other way around.

He played back their conversation like the recording of a crime, looking for any hint of trouble. He had been conditioned into doing this after all the fiascos from before, most of which had been foretold by some ill omen or another, something he might have caught had he been more diligent. But he could find nothing: no warnings, no indication that Q wanted anything but conversation. It was different, and as with any acknowledgement of a difference came the worry that something worse was about to happen because of it. Even in normalcy he could not escape his unease.

When the door to his quarters swished open, the silhouette of Q patched the stars. The lights came on and confirmed it.

"You again?"

Q's voice was terse. "Forgive me, Picard, but this really can't wait."

"I suggest you say it then. Since I have not made it clear enough I have an appointment at 0400. A long appointment, perhaps five or six hours, and I would appreciate some rest before then."

"How would you like it if I did away with all that negotiation business down there?"

"No. Thank you."

"Not like that. I'll help you with it. In the flesh. Truthfully I probably should be helping you anyway."

"I'm not confident the Federation would take to that."

"You mean you wouldn't take to that?"

"Both. Have your pick." Picard began the routine of preparing himself for bed, straightening his things, cleaning his teeth, etcetera.

"It's a trade, Picard. You won't owe me indefinitely. You'll be earning it by helping me with something, something soon."

"And what is that?"

"The details can wait. For the moment rest assured that it will be as easy as talking and will expend no more than a few minutes of your time. And I would be saving you days in return. You think this will end tomorrow? I assure you it will not. It will be months, if they don't do themselves in before then."

"Are you threatening me with their lives?"

"I'm citing probabilities. If you like I can state certainties and say you will _never_ solve this on your own."

"Their business is no concern of yours. Even if it was, I'm not willing to accept a trade without knowing in full detail what exactly I'm accepting." And even given that, Picard knew he would not agree.

"Very well, if you _must_ know. I need an alibi to speak before the Continuum."

Picard strode out of the washroom to look Q in the face. "An alibi? Is this another of their petty trials?"

"It is a petty trial. A trial against me. The last one didn't go too well, if you'll recall."

The implications of that. Picard's vision greyed when struck by them. His whisper rasped in his throat. "What have you done this time?"

Q tilted his head as though weighing each indiscretion against the other. "Nothing that I haven't always done. Nothing that they haven't done on occasion."

"You've been torturing innocents again?"

"Not torturing. I've never tortured. They were experiments, always. One must experiment to learn."

"I don't care what you call it, Q. What did you do?"

"The majority of them you couldn't comprehend."

"Start with the things I would comprehend."

"What I've done doesn't matter. I need the favor. And so do you."

"The only favor I need is for you to get out of my quarters."

"There was that favor of me keeping you alive."

"Let's make this one thing clear, right now—" Picard had raised his voice, and he meant to finish what he'd begun, had the words laid out and everything, but he could not. No matter how manipulative Q was being, Picard wasn't sure how to tell him that saving his life did not matter. Even saying it should not bear on the present rung hollow considering the present would not exist for him otherwise.

If Q sensed his uncertainty, he did not exploit it. He merely watched Picard and waited.

"Goodnight," Picard said. "Computer, lights."

Aided by the starlight, he found his bed.

He hoped Q had left, but moments later his bed shifted with new weight. He heard Q's voice from such a direction as to suggest he was reclining beside him.

"You're right. I didn't stop your death for this. I won't mention it again."

Picard noted, gloomily, that Q did rescind his request for the favor. He heard the sound of Q sighing, slow and soft. "How nice it must be for you to come back here whenever you wish. A home to yourself, your things, your reminders. To close your eyes each night knowing you're surrounded by several hundred of your equals. Your lackeys too. How nice it must be to be Jean-Luc Picard.

"The Q don't have that, Jean-Luc. Whether because we don't value it or we're incapable of it, I don't know. None of us particularly like each other. We all have ideas, and it's simple enough to find a trillion supporters of our ideas… why do we need each other even for the sake of affirmation? We don't ignore us. As a whole, as the Continuum, we're particular about what we do. We have to be. We're the only ones who can check ourselves.

"They wouldn't like me being here. They're so dismissive of lesser species. The universe should be seen but not heard, and if any of you children so much as whimper, the Continuum rushes to annihilate you. It's a simplistic solution. It's like your Federation's non-interference, a standard I've seen you balk more than you've let on. The Q don't see nuance. They despise my sensitivity, and they blame the time I spend with beings like you for what they call the degenerate state of my mind. Waste, they say, and they question whether I should be me at all."

Picard said nothing during Q's lengthy pause. When Q added, "I know you're not asleep, Picard," he rolled onto his back, giving in—for the moment.

"You would have me believe they're punishing you for talking to us? I distinctly remember torture being among your crimes, the last time."

"I told you. Experimenting. It looks like torture but it's the only way to learn."

"But they don't see this 'experimenting' as necessary?"

"They're tired of learning. The same instinct that drives their heads into the sand drove them to put your species on trial."

Picard sat up, looking down at Q's face, thinly visible in the starlight. "What did you do, Q? Enough blaming them."

"There was a galaxy somewhere I… spun a little too hard. Then a multiverse. I trimmed its branches and grafted them in at odd angles. You see, this is blather to your ears."

"What are the things I would understand?"

"Things you could guess."

"Lights."

Picard squinted as he adjusted to the change, but he kept his eyes trained on Q's face. He needed to be sure there was not an ounce of deception there. "Answer."

Q rolled to his feet and stared out the window, hiding his face again. "This isn't as simple as it looks. If I answer I'll have to educate you to understand the answer so you don't immediately write me off. I'll be educating you twice over just to get your sympathy."

"Fine. Then you won't have my sympathy."

Q looked back at him. His eyes were hard.

Without fanfare or flash or sound, Picard discovered himself standing on Cyano IV. The hum of the Enterprise was replaced with the lapping of the ocean. It was a balcony of a triangular structure Picard had seen before—the same structure in which they were conducting the negotiations. Well, he wasn't sure it was the _same_ one. It looked identical to his alien eyes.

Q was a good twenty paces down the balustrade, sitting on it like he might scoot off, plunge into the green, iron-rich water. Picard was not distracted by the change of setting; in fact, the change of setting was the largest clue.

He approached Q. He wanted his voice to be level, calm when he said it.

"I think you should tell me what you meant—_exactly_ what you meant—when you said you should probably be helping me anyway."


End file.
